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Comment Re:efficiency (Score 2, Informative) 187

by nbvb (#30833064) Attached to: Analyst Estimates AT&T Needs To Spend $5B To Catch Up

It's the other way around.

CDMA's air interface is quite efficient, actually.

So efficient, in fact, that the 3GPP's 4G standard (you know, LTE, Long-Term Evolution) is much, much more CDMA-like than TDMA-based GSM. (CDMA and LTE are both spread-spectrum technologies -- GSM/TDMA divide signals on a carrier frequency based on timing.)

Keep in mind that the cdmaOne product family is what's not being evolved any further --- the actual air interfaces developed under the CDMA banner are really the path forward. What's being 'killed off' is the TDMA-type technology that underpins GSM.
Music

Facebook Campaign Decides UK Christmas Music Charts 362

Posted by kdawson from the rage-against-the-commercialization dept.
uglyduckling writes "A grassroots Facebook campaign has pushed the 1990s Rage Against the Machine song 'Killing in the Name Of' to the top of the British music charts for Christmas. The campaign was planned to prevent the X-Factor winner from charting Christmas number one, as has been the case for the past four years. It was supposedly a kick against the commercialism of Christmas and commercial dominance in the music scene, although Rage and the X-Factor winner Joe McElderry were actually signed to the same label. Despite this minor detail, it's interesting to note that this is the first song to reach the number one spot through downloads alone in the UK, and is a testament to the organizational power of social networking sites like Facebook. The Facebook group also asked for donations to charity, and has raised £70,000 for the homeless charity Shelter."
The Military

$26 of Software Defeats American Military 534

Posted by CmdrTaco from the cheap-at-twice-the-price dept.
reporter writes "A computer program that can be easily purchased for $25.95 off the Internet can read and store the data transmitted on an unsecured channel by an unmanned drone. Drones are crucial to American military operations, for these aerial vehicles enable Washington to conduct war with a reduced number of soldiers. '... the intercepts could give America's enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under US surveillance.'"
Idle

Hand Written Clock 86

Posted by samzenpus from the up-to-the-minute dept.
a3buster writes "This clock does not actually have a man inside, but a flatscreen that plays a 24-hour loop of this video by the artist watching his own clock somewhere and painstakingly erasing and re-writing each minute. This video was taken at Design Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach 2009."
Image

NASA Tests Flying Airbag 118

Posted by samzenpus from the drop-the-cloud-anchor dept.
coondoggie writes "NASA is looking to reduce the deadly impact of helicopter crashes on their pilots and passengers with what the agency calls a high-tech honeycomb airbag known as a deployable energy absorber. So in order to test out its technology NASA dropped a small helicopter from a height of 35 feet to see whether its deployable energy absorber, made up of an expandable honeycomb cushion, could handle the stress. The test crash hit the ground at about 54MPH at a 33 degree angle, what NASA called a relatively severe helicopter crash."
Portables

Dell Rugged Laptops Not Quite Tough Enough 225

Posted by timothy from the one-good-hit dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Trusted Reviews has put the new Dell XFR rugged laptop through the grinder and it hasn't fared as well as expected. Considering that these guys drove a car over a Panasonic Toughbook, they went pretty easy on the Dell, but it still couldn't take the punishment. It looks like Dell still has a way to go to steal the ball from Panasonic when it comes to all terrain computing."
Input Devices

How To Enter Equations Quickly In Class? 823

Posted by timothy from the napkins-and-a-digital-camera dept.
AdmiralXyz writes "I'm a university student, and I like to take notes on my (non-tablet) computer whenever possible, so it's easier to sort, categorize, and search through them later. Trouble is, I'm going into higher and higher math classes, and typing "f_X(x) = integral(-infinity, infinity, f(x,y) dy)" just isn't cutting it anymore: I need a way to get real-looking equations into my notes. I'm not particular about the details, the only requirement is that I need to keep up with the lecture, so it has to be fast, fast, fast. Straight LaTeX is way too slow, and Microsoft's Equation Editor isn't even worth mentioning. The platform is not a concern (I'm on a MacBook Pro and can run either Windows or Ubuntu in a virtual box if need be), but the less of a hit to battery life, the better. I've looked at several dedicated equation editing programs, but none of them, or their reviews, make any mention of speed. I've even thought about investing in a low-end Wacom tablet (does anyone know if there are ultra-cheap graphics tablets designed for non-artists?), but I figured I'd see if anyone at Slashdot has a better solution."

Comment Re:No big deal (Score 1) 207

by feargal (#29742355) Attached to: Entire<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.SE TLD Drops Off the Internet

Sorry, that's incorrect, name-based virtual hosts pose no problem to this.

The webserver determines which virtual host is being requested by examining the Host: field in the http header. This happens well after the tcp session has been established, and that happens after the ip address has been determined.

When the browser looks for domain.example, it'll ask whatever resolver it uses to find an ip address to use. Once it has that ip address, it connects to it, and only then tells the webserver which host it wants. There is nothing to prevent the browser from using it's own cached version of the ip address and sucessfully making a connection.

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